It was glorious.
Even with the world swimming around me from my motion sickness, I basked in the sensation of the droplets impacting against my clothes and hair.
I barely noticed when Vera said tearful goodbyes to Aloras and Echion.
I did notice something just before Echion stepped on the train, though.
He gave me a shy smile, waved, and whispered, “Thank you.”
I waved in return.
Maybe, in all this mess, I’d done one small bit of good.
After we watched the train depart, our group wandered a short distance away from the train station. It wasn’t difficult to find a location to talk discreetly. We were miles from the nearest town, and only a few hundred yards in each direction around the train station had any signs of civilization. Beyond that, we hit the boundary of one of the deep forests that characterized much of the Unclaimed Lands. The Aspen Forest, maybe? I was terrible with geography.
We didn’t wander too far. It was well-known that dangerous monsters prowled freely in these forests, and only the powerful wards around the train station and tracks kept them from being assaulted. Before the tracks had been built there had been no easy path between Valia and Caelford. The two countries were on opposite sides of the continent, with hundreds of miles of the Unclaimed Land and a few smaller kingdoms like Sytennia and Erawen in between.
I was shocked at how thick the plant life was. Nearly every inch between the trees was covered in some sort of bushes or vines. We only walked in about a dozen meters before pausing in a small ring of grass.
Professor Orden spoke first. “I trust you all are aware of how dangerous this particular excursion into the tower will be. If any of you want to bow out now, this would be the time.”
Vera smirked. “I have a feeling that I don’t get that option?”
Orden shot her a dark look. “No, Miss Corrington. You do not.”
I glanced to Jin and Sera, then back to the professor. “I can’t speak for the others, but I’m definitely going in.”
“Clearly.” Professor Orden looked at my companions. “Well?”
“Going.” Sera said.
“I am also going.” Jin added.
“Yep. Definitely going.” Derek added, unprompted. “We should probably talk about what we’re all capable of. At this point, I should let you all know that I’m an Emerald. I can handle most of the heavy combat for our group.”
Vera’s eyebrows rose at Derek’s claim. I’d have been incredulous, too, if I hadn’t physically seen his Emerald aura. Wisely, she remained silent. Arguing with him wasn’t going to accomplish much.
I scratched my chin. “I’ve seen you fight, but I still don’t know what your exact capabilities are. What attunement do you actually have?”
“Oh! Of course. I’m a Soulblade. It’s sort of like a combination between a Summoner and an Enchanter. I make contracts to bind monsters to items, giving the items magical properties. I can also bind monsters to myself, which gives me some of the monster’s physical advantages. There are disadvantages, though.”
He took a breath. “Every monster I bind to an item takes up some of my mana while it’s bound, much like it would for a Summoner. That means I can’t just manufacture tons of items like an Enchanter. And unlike a Summoner, I can’t just spend mana to summon one or more copies of a monster as much as I want. I’ve only got the one monster in each item.”
He tapped the swords at his side. “I can release the monsters temporarily to fight, but if they get hurt, they actually get hurt. They’re not simulacra. The bond to the item affords them a degree of protection, since they can retreat back inside, but they can die.”
Sera made a ‘hmm’ noise, stepping closer to Derek. “Would it be possible for me to bind copies of the monsters you’ve imbued your items with?”
Derek nodded. “Technically possible, yeah, if I let them out for a bit. But I don’t think it’s a good idea. Delsys is a Citrine-level monster, and Tavare is Emerald-level. You could still make contracts, but your summoned versions would be much weaker, much like what happened when you summoned the karvensi. And, moreover, I think you have too many bound monsters already.”
“What do you mean?” Sera folded her arms.
“I saw you binding everything you could in that Survival Match. That was brilliant, by the way.”
Sera stood up a little straighter at that statement.
Derek kept talking, though. “But you shouldn’t hold onto that many bindings long-term. You know how many creatures I’ve got bound? Four. And I’m an Emerald. It’s not worth taking up the mana to bind that many things to your attunement, especially when you’re just getting started. It does make you more flexible, of course, but you won’t have enough mana to actually deploy anything if all of it is being eaten up by contracts.”
Sera sighed. “I’d love to get rid of some of my weaker contracts, but some of them are mandatory for my classes. And the ones that aren’t mandatory — things like the ones I bound during that match — are ones I’d want to keep. I’m not exactly going to have a lot of opportunities to bind something as strong as a wyvern elsewhere.”
Derek’s eyes widened. “You managed to bind the wyvern in there? I don’t think I even noticed that. That’s pretty impressive, kid. I agree that you should keep that one. But if you’ve got as many bindings as I think you do, I’ll bet you could hit Carnelian right now if you just release some of the ones you’re not using. And getting yourself a shroud would be far more useful than having a little more summoning variety.”
Sera blinked. “Mana being used up by contracts doesn’t count toward my attunement advancing? That…makes a lot of sense, actually.” She glanced from side-to-side. “You know what? This is more important than classes.”
“Slime, I release our contract.”
“Goblin, I release our contract.”
“Imp, I release our contract.”
I turned my attunement on, watching Sera briefly shimmer as she spoke each line, and then a crimson aura burst around her as she spoke the final words.
“Huh.” I mumbled. “Congratulations, Sera.”
She grinned brightly at me. “Wish I’d known I could do that, I probably would have done it weeks ago. Think I should get rid of the ogre?”
I shrugged. “Depends on if you think you’ll need the muscle.”
“I’ll hold onto it for now.” Sera turned to Derek. “Thanks for the advice. This feels… amazing.”
I felt a brief pang of jealousy that Sera’s attunement level had exceeded my own, but it was mixed with relief. If Derek decided to betray us, I wanted Sera to be as powerful as possible. A Carnelian wasn’t going to be able to handle Derek on her own, but every bit of extra power helped our chances of surviving.
“Just wait until you hit Sunstone. It gets better and better. Okay, enough from the two of us. Corin, what’ve you got?”
I patted the sword at my side. “I’m just a Quartz-level Enchanter. I have a basic magic sword with transference runes, nothing to brag about. Aside from that, I have a demi-gauntlet that can fire bursts of gray and transference mana and a stronger-than-average shield signet. I also have a device for measuring mana levels, but I don’t think it’ll be particularly useful in the tower.”
I didn’t mention the return bell, the book, or the Jaden Box deliberately. Derek was being friendly, but I still didn’t trust him as far as I could throw him.